Tamina gasped and then she stammered,
“I – d-do not – understand.”
“It’s not difficult,” said the girl, a sob breaking through her words. “Edmund has very little family money. He cannot afford to marry for love and he finds it very difficult to be with me as much as he wants to, so we have to keep our engagement a secret.”
She paused for a moment before continuing,
“I have a job and we are saving every penny we have. I am asking you, begging you, please do not encourage him to leave me! You can have any man you like! You are rich and pretty. Please leave Edmund alone.”
Tamina was listening, although the roaring sound in her head was drowning out the words.
This could not be her Edmund that this girl was talking about.
In a voice she hardly recognised as her own she enquired tentatively,
“Do you mean Edmund would marry you if he had sufficient funds?”
“Of course he would,” the reply came simply down the wire. “He has been my lover for over a year now. We see each other whenever we can, but even with his new position in the House of Commons we cannot afford to marry. Our future depends on Edmund making a great deal of money.”
Tamina gasped.
She had a terrible feeling that the world was falling away beneath her feet and that she was about to faint.
She swayed and sat down abruptly at the desk in her father’s big carved chair.
“Does Edmund – love you?” she whispered, wondering if perhaps there was still some reason to believe that this was all a dreadful mistake.
Surely her Edmund was an honourable man? He would never become engaged to one girl whilst in a relationship with another!
It was unthinkable.
“Of course he loves me! We are engaged. But I saw you dancing with him tonight and although Edmund assures me that you and he are just friends, and that he only escorted you to the ball because your parents are out of the country, I still felt that you should be told.”
And with a click the connection was broken.
Tamina stared at the receiver in her hand, almost as if she did not know what she was holding.
Carefully she hung up, concentrating because her hand was trembling so much.
Beyond the yellow circle of light from the desk lamp on her father’s desk, the room was cloaked in darkness.
The shelves of leather bound books seemed to close in around her. The marble busts of great statesmen and Greek Gods that stood in shallow alcoves seemed to be sneering at her.
Tamina gazed into the swirling shadows, knowing that never again would she enter this room without feeling a surge of deep despair.
What she had heard could not be true!
Yet, in some odd instinctive way, she was certain that it was true.
She realised that she had always suspected in some recess of her heart that Edmund was attracted not just to her, but also to her family and position in Society.
He asked so many questions about her father and mother, showing interest in which important people in the political and aristocratic world came to the house for dinner parties or meetings.
She knew he expected to be included in that way of life very soon, and when they became man and wife that is just what would have happened.
But to marry her when he loved someone else! How could he have condemned them both to such a barren life together?
Tamina felt the first tears gather in her eyes and run unheeded down her cheeks.
It was now becoming clear why he had insisted on their engagement being kept a secret.
Was there even a sick old grandmother living in Scotland, or was that a lie too? Probably, she told herself sadly. He had been scared that this other girl would hear of their relationship and cause a scene in public, which would be ruinous to his political career.
Instinctively Tamina was quite sure that the girl on the telephone was the same girl she had seen talking to him at the ball.
Everything now made a terrible mind-wrenching sense.
“Oh, Edmund! How could you do such a dreadful, dreadful thing?” she whispered out loud in anguish.
She now recognised that even if their wedding had taken place, he would still in his heart desire the girl he loved, who had worked so hard to provide money even though he could not afford to marry her.
It was the first time in her life that Tamina had ever thought of her money or position in Society as causing difficulties, or being an attraction that an unscrupulous man would find irresistible.
If she had ever considered the family wealth, she had seen her father’s money merely as something that enabled them to go abroad whenever they wanted. To travel on the best ships and stay in the best hotels.
Her father was wealthy, and undoubtedly his important position at the Foreign Office meant that everyone wanted to know him and receive the invitations he and her mother sent out practically every week of the year.
They invited guests to dinners, balls, weekend’s in the country at the Braithwaite estate in Devon, boating parties on the river, outings to the races and anything else fashionable in the appropriate season.
Tamina had received a great deal of attention since she came out in London Society. She had believed, in her innocence, that men liked her for herself.
Now the scales were falling from her eyes.
‘It is not me the men are running after,’ she told herself, ‘it is my father’s fortune! If I was as plain as a pikestaff and as badly dressed as some women are, even badly educated, they would still be knocking on the door and inviting me to dance with them. Eventually, like Edmund, they would ask me to marry them.’
She wanted to scream because it was all so humiliating.
Worst of all was the fact that she had stupidly believed all the compliments she had received.
She had thought the men who said she was adorable were thinking of her and not her money.
What was more, she now questioned the reason why she was invited to so many parties; was it because they wanted her company, wanted to hear her views and opinions and get to know her as a person? Or was it, as now seemed likely, because they wanted access to her father.
‘How can I bear it? How can I live with this knowledge?’ Tamina howled to herself.
But for the moment there was no answer, only the darkness that seemed to her the darkness of humility and misery.
Edmund, the man she loved so much, had betrayed her in every possible way.
“What shall I do, and what shall I say to him?” she asked out loud to the uncaring marble busts that stared sightlessly down at her. “How can I live now I know the truth?
“But there was no answer and she felt as if she had suddenly entered a new world of shadows where, at the moment, there was no light.
*
In the West of London the Earl of Daventry tore off his evening jacket and threw it carelessly onto a chair. The remains of his Arabian headdress had been discarded long ago.
He kicked the smouldering logs in the grate, but only a few sparks leapt up the chimney.
He rested one hand on the marble mantelpiece and gazed down into the ashes in despair.
Ashes – that just about summed up his life.
Eunice was already engaged to be married! She had lied to him; well, perhaps not in so many words, but surely, “are you free to be my close friend?” was not a question any gentleman would have needed to ask a young lady.
Why had she not told him about the American, Marshall, when they first met? It was so astounding that he still could not quite believe it.
But what if the young girl at the ball had been wrong? She was no more than a child and children often see things from a mistaken point of view.
He kicked at the smouldering logs again, finally extinguishing all life.
No, there was no hope. Once she had told him, one or two other little moments sprang to mind, some casual remarks from acquaintances, perfectly innocent in isolation but togeth
er beginning to make sense.
And that was what made it so much worse! Not that a woman had taken him for a fool – that could happen to any man who lived life to the full, but that his honour and standing in Society were now threatened.
People would be talking and gossiping behind his back. He could picture the scene – the silences that would fall when he entered a room and the dry remarks from fellow members of his Club.
He would be cast in the role of ‘the other man’, someone who would blatantly attempt to break up an engagement and – what was even more bitter to the taste – while the lady’s fiancé was not even in the country to defend his relationship.
Well, he decided he would not stay here in England a second longer!
A gentle tap at the door made him start.
Joe, his young valet, entered carrying a pot of coffee on a tray.
For a second the black clouds around him lifted. The boy looked so serious, his fair hair falling into his brown eyes, concentrating on carrying the heavy load without tripping.
The Earl could not recall Joe’s brother, Jacob, who had also been killed in the appalling accident that had changed so many lives. But he knew from family letters that he had been a fine young man and he was sure that Joe would follow in his footsteps.
“Thank you, Joe. That is most welcome.”
“Do you wish me to light another fire, my Lord? I had one lit earlier because it seemed a little chilly, even for a summer night.”
“No, Joe. That will not be necessary. But Joe, there is something you can do for me.”
“My Lord?”
“Start to prepare my clothes and yours for a long trip. As soon as I possibly can, I intend to take passage by sea to somewhere far away. And you will be coming with me.”
*
Tamina was pacing round and round her bedroom, trying to stem the tears that were burning her eyes.
‘I must go away. I can’t stay in London. What will I say to Edmund when we meet? Oh, I hate him! I hate him! But I love him, too!’
She flung herself on top of her bed, burying her hot face in the cool lavender-scented pillows.
‘Oh, if only Mama was here with me. I could explain to her, tell her. She would understand.’
She wondered briefly if she could travel out to Italy to her parents, then knew with a sinking certainty that she could not.
Her father was on official, if discreet, Foreign Office business and her mother was there to help and officiate at all the luncheons and dinner parties they would be giving and attending.
Although it looked as if they were only in Italy to enjoy themselves, Tamina knew that Lord Braithwaite would, in fact, be deeply involved in very delicate political negotiations.
The arrival of a distraught daughter talking about a secret engagement that was no longer happening, because a dishonourable man had betrayed her, would not be helpful.
She could not impose such a burden on her dear parents.
Tamina rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. She rubbed at her eyes with a wisp of lace that was soaking wet.
“Oh, Edmund. What have you done?” she cried helplessly and miserably feeling that her whole world had fallen to pieces.
She had felt so happy that she was flying up into the sky.
Her love for Edmund had increased each time they met and every day and every night she loved him more and more.
As she tossed from one side of the bed to the other, she kept thinking that everything he had said to her was completely untrue.
When he had said he loved her more than anyone else in the world, he was really thinking of the other woman he loved, not her.
Slowly she sat up.
She would not stay in London to be embarrassed by having to meet Edmund and tell him she had discovered his unscrupulous duplicity.
Now, when Tamina thought back, she really could understand why he had made all he had said to her so convincing. Not for one moment did she suspect his words were anything but the truth.
What he was really saying was,
“I love your money and position in Society. I want your money, and I must have your money to be accepted by the circle of people you are part of. With all that I will be more important in every way than I am at the moment.”
‘That is what he really desires,’ Tamina told herself. ‘I have been fool enough to believe that I mattered more to him than anything else in the whole wide world.”
For an hour she dozed fitfully and then as dawn started to show apricot and peach shades in the Eastern sky, she woke and began to bathe her face in cool water.
‘How do I face him?’ she asked her pale reflection. ‘How do I cope in the days, weeks and months ahead with this misery in my heart and soul? How can I make him realise I know the truth? That his words of love, which seemed to lift me into Heaven itself, were merely a pretence or rather a way to grab my father’s money to make his life successful.’
Suddenly she knew she could not face Edmund.
It would be impossible to listen again to his words of love when they were all lies.
Lies which he told so cleverly that she believed everything he said to her.
‘He will tell me that I am mistaken and that the girl on the telephone was the one who lied. And every word he speaks will drive another nail into the coffin of our love, because it will show me over and over again that he has no honour.’
Tamina rubbed at her lips with a cloth, trying to erase the mere thought of Edmund’s kiss. She had felt that when he kissed her he had not only given her his lips, but his heart and his very soul.
But all he had given her in reality was a taste of hell.
CHAPTER THREE
For Tamina, the next day passed in a haze of misery.
She stayed in her room, informing her staff that she had a bad headache and was definitely not at home to anyone, including Mr Newson.
Flowers arrived from Edmund. One delicate posy of violets and tiny white rosebuds at noon and later in the afternoon, a huge bunch of lilies and gardenias bound with yards of pink ribbon.
A fulsome note, expressing his warmest love and deep regret that she was ill, accompanied each offering; hoping upon hope that she would soon recover.
Tamina read the hand-written lines, the declarations of never-ending love and felt a surge of anger mixed with despair.
How dare Edmund write such words when he was engaged to another woman?
It was diabolical behaviour.
Twenty-four long hours passed.
Tamina could not sleep, could not eat. All she could think of were the shattered dreams that lay all around her.
And she was now facing her biggest problem. She could tell no one and even her brothers were both abroad in the Army and Navy.
If Peter and Guy had been at home, they would undoubtedly have been furious with Edmund and there might even have been a fight, because, as much as they bossed her around, she was still their little sister and would be horrified at the thought of someone hurting her.
But as her engagement to Edmund had been such a secret, even her best friends had no idea that she had lost her heart and had it broken, all in such a short space of time.
Her closest friend was the youngest daughter of the Duke of Marlow. If only she had told Charlotte about Edmund, she could have gone to stay with her and her family on their vast Yorkshire estate. Edmund would never have found her there.
Now she knew what she had to do. Get away from London until she was fully recovered.
She could not cope with some dreadful scene with the man she loved so much.
‘I cannot stay here,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘It is far too easy for him to contact me. At some point one of the servants will let him into the house or he will lay in wait for me in the street! Oh, it will be too dreadful.’
What could he possibly do or say to put things right between them? In the dark hours of the night, she had run through various silly conversations in her mind.
‘
Oh, Tamina, my love, of course it is you I adore. This girl is deranged. She has recently been in a mental institution and has been tracking me, pretending to be my fiancée.’
No, it was all rubbish.
He had behaved dishonourably because she was rich and her father was Lord Braithwaite.
Tamina knew that she would never ever forgive Edmund.
If she ever found peace of mind again, then she could return to London and just tell him, calmly and dispassionately, exactly how she had felt and how ashamed he should be of his behaviour.
She tossed and turned in her bed, trying to find a cool place on the pillow for her head.
‘Yes, I will go away, but not just on a holiday as Lady Tamina Braithwaite. Even if I travel people will know who I am. They will know I am rich and my parents are important. How will I ever discover if they like me for myself?
‘I will always be thinking that people want to speak to me, be in my company, just because of who I am and what my family own.
‘No, I must now go in disguise, take a job and find something to do so that no one will guess who I am. I must do something new and exciting to take my mind off the unhappiness I feel now.’
Tamina climbed out of bed and knelt on the window seat, gazing out at the beautiful moonlit garden beneath her. The colourful flowers were all bleached to white and silver in the moonlight, but she saw none of them.
She ran through her talents in her mind.
‘I have been well educated – better than many girls thanks to Papa’s modern views on women. I can teach children and be a governess or perhaps a companion to an elderly lady. Or I could offer my services as a secretary.’
Tamina knew that she still had the skills she had acquired at her finishing school in Switzerland, even if they were a little rusty.
Some of the girls who had been in Geneva with her had thought it very odd that she, Tamina Braithwaite, should bother to learn such mundane things as typing and how to take dictation.
“But Tamina, you are so silly!” they had exclaimed. “Why are you still bothering your head with that dirty typewriter and all those horrid little squiggles? You’ll never need to do either of these boring tasks once you are home and have come out!”
In Hiding Page 3
